


The Nature Of Inviting

by loghain



Series: The Nature of Inviting [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:07:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loghain/pseuds/loghain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time that Hannibal Lecter had a conversation with Will Graham, it was because one of the more kindly of the teachers recognised that the bruise high on Will's cheekbone was not a product of student brawling. Obligatory High School AU: Hannibal is the school counsellor. Will is sixteen. It ends in porn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nature Of Inviting

The first time that Hannibal Lecter had a conversation with Will Graham, it was because one of the more kindly of the teachers recognised that the bruise high on Will's cheekbone was not a product of student brawling.

"Student  _bullying_  maybe," Alana Bloom said, "but he didn't have it yesterday and he was in my first class this morning. Talk to him, Dr Lecter, find out what's going on." She'd made to leave, and then turned back, and said, "He's not like the other boys here. He's anxious, easily uncomfortable. It's why I'm not dragging him into the principal's office or holding him back after class."

Hannibal nodded. "The gentle approach, then." He tilts his head at her. "Did you never consider going into psychiatry, Miss Bloom? I believe you would find yourself quite adept."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you never consider getting a job somewhere that wasn't a run down high school?" Alana tapped the doorframe with her fingers and smiled, and then was gone, shutting the grey door of his office behind her.

At lunch, Hannibal found Will Graham in the library. It was a pitiful place, really, with books that were out of date and held together with tape, scrawled in by a hundred students who didn't care about property that wasn't theirs. It was consistently quiet though, and it sounded exactly where Will might hide.

Hannibal was glad to be right. "Will Graham?" He kept his distance. Will looked up. The bruise on his cheek shone purple and yellow in the dim light. "That looks quite painful," he said, and gestured to his own cheek.

"It looks worse than it is." Will never quite met Hannibal's gaze, seemingly only looking at his face at all in order to ascertain who was addressing him. Hannibal wondered how many teachers and fellow students had taken that for insolence and disrespect.

Hannibal waited a beat, watching Will stare into the depths of some banal book before speaking again. "Do you know who I am?"

"Dr Lecter? The school counsellor?"

"That's right. I'm sure you've noticed that your fellow students require quite a bit of counselling."

"I didn't think counsellors were ever actually doctors." Will paused and looked up, his eyes lingering somewhere around Hannibal's jawline. "Sorry."

"No need to apologise, Will, it's an astute observation." Hannibal looked at the rickety old wooden seats, and then to the lone woman in charge of the library. He thought about asking to sit, and then thought better of it. He would prefer not to talk to this student in the company of people who have nothing more to do than eavesdrop. "Would you consider coming to my office so we may have a conversation?"

"No offense, but I don't really wanna be psychoanalysed." 

"I won't psychoanalyse you. I'm a counsellor. Your teacher Miss Bloom wanted me to speak with you." That got Will's attention, a very silently relaxed shift in his movement. It was clear the teenager liked Alana. It seemed likely that she was the only adult who treated Will like he was anything more than the rest of the student pack. "Unless you are studying for something important."

Will's brow furrowed and he looked between the book and Hannibal and then admitted, "I wasn't studying."

Hannibal smiled. He could tell. "Then you have no reason to say no."

Will didn't seem to relax when they got to his office. Hannibal sat behind his desk and Will anxiously paced the small room, coming to a stop to stare at the framed doctorate hung high on the wall, out of the reach of meddling students. He seemed curious. "Please speak freely, Will."

The permission seemed to help. Will shifted and pushed his glasses up his nose. "If you're a real doctor, how did you wind up working here?"

"I was a surgeon for many years in an emergency room. I found that treating minds instead of bodies was much more palatable, and a high school appealed to my philanthropic side." Being open was, more or less, the only key to get Will Graham to trust him.

Will scoffed, remarking, "Philanthropic side?" and finally sat in the chair opposite Hannibal's. The desk divided them. No doubt it was some small comfort for Will, who seemed to dislike intimacy of any kind. A physical barrier in such a small room, to keep him safe.

Hannibal linked his fingers. "Is it so hard to believe that I have one?"

Will went quiet, staring at Hannibal from beneath his glasses. For the briefest second, he looked into Hannibal's eyes, and then away. "No, actually."

"You'll find I'm quite the humanitarian." Hannibal leaned forward, just a little bit, examining Will quietly. He was starting to figure out this boy. He was a strange one. "How did that bruise come about?"

"My father and I don't always agree."

Ah. Hannibal could piece him together clearer now. "This is not the first time this has happened, yet you don't hate him. It isn't something you consider a problem." 

Will seemed surprised. He nodded.

"And your mother?"

Will's response was calculated. "She doesn't live with us."

"You don't know her," Hannibal surmised.

Will's laugh was abrupt, uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess so." He deflected. "Where are you from, Dr Lecter? I can't work out your accent."

"Northern Europe. I was born in Lithuania. Miss Bloom tells me that you've moved schools lot."

"My dad moves around a lot for work."

They talked for most of the lunchtime hour. Hannibal understood Will, by the end of it. Though it was not a talent he recognised or cultivated, the teenager was capable of extraordinary sight, into the minds and movements of others. Were he to ever take it upon himself to sharpen that talent he would be formidable.

Will was adrift in a sea of people who could not understand he was not arrogant or insolent or any measure of unkind, but simply drowning in the collected emotions of everyone around him. People around Will failed to see that he teetered on the edge of unwilling and unable to connect, and that was how an argument with his father had resulted in his father lashing out.

Hannibal recounted their conversation to Alana and she was pleased to hear that although Will was complicated, there was generally nothing untoward going on at home or in his life to give cause for concern. The bruise would fade, although Will's father was likely to be guilty forever.

After such a lengthy probing conversation Hannibal was surprised, though by no means unhappy, to have Will knock on his door during the next lunchtime.

"What brings you back here, Will?"

He hesitated in the doorway. Then he said, "Miss Bloom suggested that if I ever felt like... having someone to talk to then I should go to her or you."

Hannibal shifted his weight. "You would prefer to talk to me?"

Will stared up at Hannibal. It was easy, somehow, to forget that Will Graham was only a boy comparatively speaking. He was not particularly tall, and he had something of a hunch, no doubt from years of drawing in on himself to avoid other people, but he had a messy beard persisting around his jawline; Hannibal suspected that father-son bonding had rather failed in the department of teaching Will how to shave.

With the glasses and the way that Will tucked in his shirt, he looked much older. Hannibal absently wondered if Will's inability to shave adequately was a result of occasionally shaking hands. Or perhaps a nervousness when holding something that could draw blood. Hannibal glanced downward to look at Will's hands, but then Will spoke.

"I don't really know if I even have anything to talk about," Will admitted, fidgeting uncomfortably in the doorway, and he said, "I'm sorry for bothering you during lunch, Dr Lecter, I'm gonna just go - "

"No," Hannibal spoke up, as he began to turn. Will stopped. "I'm sure that we'll find something to discuss. Come in." When Will hesitated, Hannibal spoke more firmly. "I insist. Your company is by no means strenuous."

This time Hannibal took it upon himself to eat whilst he spoke with Will. Perhaps not the most polite thing to do, but it was lunchtime. Impeccable manners couldn't be achieved all the time.

Besides, they were only talking. This wasn't a counselling session.

"Do you not have friends you can spend lunch with, Will?" He liked to repeat his name. To personalise things. If he couldn't have the boy's eye contact, he would have Will know their conversations were real in other ways. "Surely they would make better company than myself."

"No," Will said, simply enough. "Most of the guys here are... different. To me. I don't particularly share their interest for sports or smoking weed or... girls." He blew out a long sigh with the final word.

That was interesting information. Hannibal didn't let his curiosity show on his face and glanced down at his bowl of salad, topped with the chopped liver of a plumber who obnoxiously tried to overcharge. "What are your interests?"

Will shrugged, his fingers running along the arms of the chair he was sat in. He peered around the office. "Dogs. Fishing. Boats... I like the ocean."

"Interests you inherited from your father."

"He hates dogs."

"You want to own one?"

"Yeah." There was a long pause and Will said, "Dogs are easier than people."

Will spending his lunchtimes in Hannibal's office started to become something of a habit. It only took a few visits for Hannibal to realise that Will never had food; seemingly he couldn't afford it and there was not much at home.

He never embarrassed Will by asking, but he did begin to quietly make too much for himself. At first took persuading to make Will finish his leftovers.

Will never noticed when Hannibal had gradually begun making deliberate separate portions for them both. He simply accepted a tupperware bowl and a fork with a grateful smile. Smiles, Hannibal noted, that were often only for him.

Alana was the first person to notice how much time Will spent in Hannibal's office. "Is he alright, Dr Lecter? I see him go into or come out of your office nearly every day." She rose an eyebrow, as she was prone to doing, in a way that should've been impudent but instead came across as charming. "I hope you've not gone full psychiatrist on him. He's not your patient."

"Will Graham is lonely," he told her. Hannibal pondered on how to explain it in a way that didn't reveal that things, of late, were... different, less simple conversations and probing of a clever young man's mind.

It was lucky that lying came as easy as breathing, lest he slip the way that Will's ears had taken to burning red when Hannibal complimented or was kind to him. "He seeks the company of those who would not ridicule him. Company not found with other sixteen year old boys whose only interests are football and young women. He disquiets them as much as they disquiet him."

"And you think you're appropriate company for him?" Alana questioned.

Hannibal thought about his answer to that. "I think I am his only option. We think alike."

"Be careful, Dr Lecter," Alana warned him. "You wouldn't be the first school counsellor in trouble for spending too much time with a student. If you empathise too much with him he may form an attachment that could be problematic for the both of you."

Hannibal gave her his sweetest smile. "Miss Bloom, you really should have considered psychiatry over a teaching position." She cast him a dark look. He cleared his throat. "I assure you of this: we are friendly, but Will is a student and I am a counsellor. Our relationship is limited to the four walls of my office and perhaps the halls of this school."

That seemed to satisfy her.

Will, of course, was already attached. Hannibal saw it. Yet his mind was constantly alert and overrode urges, and he tensed beneath even the lightest of touches - like Hannibal passing him a fork for lunch and letting his fingers linger against Will's.

Hannibal wondered, after three weeks of thinking on the best way to coax Will towards him, if the direct approach wasn't the best. Of course, no pinning the young Will against a wall and claiming his mouth; like a deer faced with a hunter, it would only make him flee. Will would never return to the office.

Something more subtle.

He waited until Will was relaxed in the midst of a Wednesday lunch and broached the subject. "Do you remember our second conversation, Will?"

Will paused, picking at the pasta and bacon (taken from the belly of a petulant receptionist) in his bowl as he thought and admitted, "No."

"You told me that you do not share the interests of your male comrades. You specifically mentioned girls." Hannibal watched Will carefully as the teenager looked down uncomfortably. Hannibal tilted his head, ever so slightly. "Was this to mean that you simply do not find yourself embroiled in the same teenage hormones as your fellows, or do your interests lie elsewhere?" When Will didn't respond, Hannibal urged, "Perhaps with men?"

Will stabbed a piece of pasta viciously. "I've found that you quickly become unpopular if your classmates believe that you're looking at them in the showers."

"You've had previous experience of this."

"A girl called Freddie Lounds found out and told everyone."

The experience was clearly uncomfortable. Hannibal decided to move immediately on. "You know, the thoughts and feelings you have - the urges you feel - are normal. There is nothing wrong with them, or you."

The muscle in Will's jaw clenched. He was no longer paying attention to his food. His eyes darted all over the room - anywhere but Hannibal. "Do you have urges?" He challenged.

Hannibal resisted the temptation to smile. "I have urges," he told him.

Will looked Hannibal directly in the eye, and Hannibal caught and held the gaze. It can't have been more than five seconds, yet it was longer than Will had ever done before, and the boy turned bright red when he finally looked away.

The tension was palpable until the moment that Will left, and the smell of his nerves lingered long after. It was strong enough to negate Hannibal's irritation over the uneaten food.

Will didn't show up the next day.

Or the day after that. Hannibal would be lying if he said he didn't feel the urge to find the young man. He had to wait for Will to come to him.

Which he did, on the third day, with worn eyes that said he hadn't slept. Hannibal welcomed him inside without a word. He flicked the lock on the door when Will's back was turned.

"Dr Lecter," Will started, hovering beside his usual seat. "I think that things may be becoming inappropriate. Unhealthy."

Those didn't sound like Will's words at all. Hannibal's neck nearly cracked at how fast he turned it, looking at Will. "I've been spending too much time in here," Will said, looking at his feet. "I'm a student and you're the counsellor, you're not... you're not my friend."

Hannibal narrowed his eyes. "Has Miss Bloom spoken to you?"

Will guiltily rubbed the back of his neck.

Hannibal breathed back his fury. He enjoyed Alana Bloom, but she would do well to be careful where she stepped. This was not her territory.

But he could make it work. Hannibal was nothing if not good at improvisation. "I don't believe anything inappropriate has transpired between us, Will." He stayed beside the door, speaking from behind the student. Will kept his back to him yet his head was tilted, his ear turned as he listened.

"I don't know if that's quite - " Will started, and then Hannibal hushed him.

"I told you," he said softly, "that there is nothing wrong with the urges you feel." It was a leap. A chance. A just barely calculated chance. 

It paid off. Will turned, eyes wide. He seemed not to think about it when he met Hannibal's eyes this time. Hannibal relished the connection. "My - urges?"

"Our urges," Hannibal corrected, tipping his chin down.

Will seemed not to understand. And then he did, and his chest swelled and he steadied himself on his chair. "What are you saying?" His voice had an accusatory tone to it.

Hannibal stepped towards him. Closing the gap between them. "I believe you know full well what I'm saying, Will. Things are not inappropriate - yet."

"Yet," Will repeated slowly.

"But they could be."

Will finally broke their gaze. His mind seemed to be grasping for the last vestiges of morality, of sensible choices, and he said, "You could go to jail just for  _saying_  this, right?"

"I could." Hannibal contemplated. "I believe some risks are worth taking." 

Will looked up at him, his eyes wide, and in them Hannibal saw his soul bared open at last.

Hannibal silently thanked Alana for her inadvertent assistance and kissed Will, warm and firm on the mouth.

Will tensed beneath him, yet Hannibal could sense it was inexperience that caused his anxiety. Hannibal coaxed kisses from his lips, and revelled in the way Will would desperately gasp for air as though Hannibal was stealing it from him.

Will's fingers searched for a place to hold and found the lapels of Hannibal's jacket when Hannibal's hands found his waist. He was on the side of slight, as boys his age tended to be, and Hannibal enjoyed the way his hands fit to the skin beneath Will's shirt. It only took another half-step for Hannibal to nudge his thigh up against Will's crotch; he was hard already, of course, armed with teenage virility.

Will's breathing stopped. Hannibal rocked his leg forward and Will clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a sound.

Hannibal wondered how well Will could hold in those noises if Hannibal were to push him over his desk. Over Will's shoulder he admired the rows of pens and neatly stacked papers and thought of how Will would reach for something to hold onto, anything, how he would crumple papers and knock pots of pencils flying and beg for more.

... A notion for another day. Will wasn't ready. Hannibal could feel the fear and adrenaline that shocked through him even just now, just this, clothed contact that was barely anything at all.

"Come with me," Hannibal murmured, and Will shook as he let Hannibal lead him around to the other side of the desk that had always divided them. "I'm going to sit down," he told Will, "and I want you to sit on my lap."

Will turned red from throat to ear, incredulous, but Hannibal allowed him no protest. He sat, and he waited for Will to do as he bid.

Will was hesitant at first. He sat on Hannibal's knees, perching. "That won't do," Hannibal said, and he pulled Will all the way back on his lap, so that Will's back was pressed to his chest. 

He kissed the nape of Will's neck and wound his hands around to his front,  pulling apart Will's thighs with one and unbuttoning his pants with the other. Will squirmed and Hannibal did not whisper comforting thoughts to him - instead he again mouthed at the skin on the back of his neck, a reminder of who he was with, where he was.

The temptation to press his teeth there was heady.

Hannibal splayed his hand against the bulge in Will's jeans and rolled his palm against it, and when Will wriggled desperately against him, Hannibal relieved him of his pains, using both hands to nudge aside both pants and boxers so that he could wrap his hand around Will's cock.

Just this was something to behold, to feel. Will wanted but never seemed quite sure what; he panted and gripped the arms of the chair, deviating between going boneless against Hannibal and being strained all over, his spine arching.

To have someone so utterly bewildered beneath his control was exhilarating. Hannibal nudged his own knees apart to lever his hips, to seek some friction to relieve his own tension, and when Will felt Hannibal's cock pressing against him through layers of fabric he gasped and said, "Is that - Are you going to - "

"Fuck you?" and Will hissed " _Yes_ ", somewhere between confirmation and desire. Hannibal teased his thumb over the leaking head of Will's cock and  said, "No."

Will seemed both disappointed and relieved, so Hannibal clarified, "Not today, good Will. But you would like that?" Will whimpered. "Have you thought about it, during our lunches together? What it would be like?"

Will's voice trembled and stretched. "Yes."

Hannibal stilled his hand, curious. "For how long?"

"Weeks," Will breathed.

Hannibal wanted to probe further, to find out if Will had bitten his pillow at home, jerking off at night whilst thinking about Hannibal, but he suspected neither Will nor his fragile state could take much more.

He pulled Will's hips down against his own with one hand, pressing on Will's stomach so that they were as close as could be, and he could feel every movement Will made as Hannibal moved his hand again. 

He wondered if Will had ever been touched before. With no small measure of pride he knew that if he had, it had never been like this; likely it was immature, useless fumbles, nothing like this, nothing like the things that Hannibal promises to do.

Will writhed downward and Hannibal's own groan caught him off guard. Will's breath hitched in his throat and he gasped, "I think I'm gonna - "

Hannibal could feel it, in the way that Will's whole body was wound like a spring, his stomach muscles fluttering desperately beneath Hannibal's fingers.

Hannibal was almost disappointed that he couldn't properly see Will's face like this, as he sped up his hand and tempted Will over the edge. Will came with a startled, cut-off cry, shaking against Hannibal, and Hannibal stroked him through it with a smile on his lips.

Will's come was sticky, cooling fast where some had caught on his fingers. The rest was on the carpet beneath the desk. Hannibal would give it a wipe over later, but this carpet had seen worse.

He brought his fingers to his lips whilst Will panted in his lap, recovering. He sucked a thumb into his mouth and tasted Will on his fingers, the smell of him, the bitter-salty tang of come.

A wonderful appetizer.

Hannibal thought of the way to handle the end of this encounter, but Will was suddenly, shakily on his knees, braced between Hannibal's thighs. He stared up at Hannibal, breathless.

"Will," Hannibal started, "You don't have to do that."

Will averted his gaze and undid Hannibal's belt, dragging down the zipper of his pants with trembling fingers. "I've done it before," he said, and his words were thick and clumsy, layered with a dizzied post-orgasm drowsiness. After a long pause, he added, "I want to."

With defter hands than before, he pulled Hannibal's cock free from his underwear and wrapped his mouth around the head.

It seemed Will Graham was fully capable of surprising Hannibal.

"Have you thought of this, too?" Hannibal asked, and Will pulled back to nod before his mouth was on him again, wet and warm and more than welcome. 

It was sloppy. It lacked technique. But technique, really, wasn't everything. It was the way that Will's eyes were fever bright, the way a little sweat gathered on his temple and how his lips turned pinker with each little bob of his head. His fingers circled what he couldn't take in his mouth, and he was so incredibly earnest and determined and from the flush in his cheeks, still rather turned on even if his body couldn't handle it immediately.

It was so beautiful, having this sixteen year old lonely boy on his knees so desperate to please, beautiful enough to make the breath catch in Hannibal's throat.

It's the way that Will responded to Hannibal encouragingly raking his fingers through Will's curly hair that ends up unexpectedly driving Hannibal closer to the edge, causing that heat to coil in his belly - Will pulled his mouth off Hannibal's cock to moan, as though he wanted everything Hannibal could possibly give him yet hasn't the strength or comprehension to cope with it.

"Will," Hannibal courteously warned, and Will diveed back to his task, licking over the slit of Hannibal's cock - and then he pulled away, hunkering down in front of Hannibal, his mouth just a little open and chin tilted up as he worked both hands over him.

Hannibal came with a low groan, pleasure sweeping over him in waves - helped by the sight of his come on Will's face, on the glasses that Will had thoughtlessly left on, one streak clinging to his brown hair. Will tongued at what was on his lips, seemingly more out of natural habit than a real desire to taste it.

Hannibal pulled him up close without a word, smearing some of his come onto two fingers before he held them out for Will. Will shook his head, hesitating, but then he took Hannibal's fingers into his mouth anyway, sucking them clean. Hannibal would have to teach him how not to waste.

For now though, for this, he rewarded Will with a deep and lingering kiss, the kind he knew that Will wanted.

He looked at the clock on the far wall. "Lunch is almost over," he told Will, whilst reaching for the top drawer where he kept a box of tissues (usually for crying students).

"Oh," Will said. He seemed dazed.

"Will," Hannibal said, drawing the boy's attention to him. He held out tissues, and used another to wipe come from Will's face. It really was a waste. "You may wish to clean your glasses," he prompted, and Will seemed to wake up, his cheeks flushing as he took them off and wiped them clean.

"What classes do you have this afternoon?" He inquired.

"Math," Will said. "French. And biology."

Hannibal watched Will tidy himself up with no small amount of awkwardness. He did the same to himself, and crudely cleaned his fingers.

"This was," Will trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished. It seemed likely that he didn't know how he had wanted to finish the sentence in the first place.

Hannibal stood up from his chair, approaching the door and quietly undoing the lock in the process of opening it. He gestured for Will to leave, though not unkindly, and Will lingered in the doorway, staring in Hannibal's general vicinity. It seemed their encounter had undone all that good work with eye contact. No matter.

"I will see you for lunch tomorrow, Will," Hannibal pressed gently, and Will finally smiled.

"Tomorrow, Dr Lecter," he agreed.


End file.
